Super-Size Government

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“The political left in America is emerging victorious,” writes Patrick Chisholm, and its true because “the era of big government is far from over. Trends are decidedly in favor of that quintessential leftist goal: massive redistribution of wealth.”

Over the past two decades, “Republicans’ capture of both Congress and the White House was, understandably, a demoralizing blow to the left. But the latter can take solace that “Republican” is no longer synonymous with spending restraint, free markets, and other ideals of the political right.”

Chisholm cites the fact that since 2000, “During the first five years of President Bush’s presidency, nondefense discretionary spending (i.e., spending decided on an annual basis) rose 27.9 percent, far more than the 1.9 percent growth during President Clinton’s first five years, according to the libertarian Reason Foundation. And according to Citizens Against Government Waste, the number of congressional ‘pork barrel’ projects under Republican leadership during fiscal 2005 was 13,997, more than 10 times that of 1994.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, since “discretionary spending is dwarfed by mandatory spending – spending that cannot be changed without changing the laws.”

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I have generally thought one of the alturistic notions of the Left was to help make poor people richer.

Disastorously, the Left has decided that more state power is the way to help relieve poverty. I have concluded that not only does the arithmetic not work (make rich people poorer does not make poor people richer), but the removal of assets from the general public into the hands of the state tends to end up with assets being in the hands of the state, not the poor.

For all the misery that the Left has brought to society, being a Statist is by no means the exclusive terrain of Leftists.